Phew … I Made It!



The following self evaluation depicts the tedious journey I have been on in this course, as someone who has never taken a statistics course or worked in R before. I am thankful for all that I have learned and I am confident in stating that I am walking away with a good understanding of the various different uses of R in statistical analysis. As time went on in the semester, trouble-shooting issues I ran into became much easier and my confidence in code grew as well.


What were you asked to do?

Please give me a bulleted/numbered list of each task you were asked to do for this course. Where relevant, please also link the html version of the file representing each task, in your own repos, to the bulleted entry for that task.

My GitHub: (https://github.com/lilliansoccer10)

What did you accomplish?

Please let me know how many of the above tasks you accomplished. If any of them were accomplished later than stipulated, please note that. If you contacted me about them being late (and we discussed it and I said it was ok), please note that, too. You may provide a bulleted/numbered list matching the one above.

I completed all assigned readings and modules by class the week they were assigned, unless I did not understand and had to complete them after going over issues in class.

I completed all of the homework assignments on time with minimal adjustments (if any) after the due date/time.

I completed all peer commentary assignments in a timely fashion, in order for my peers to make necessary corrections on the assignment before the due date/time.

I completed the group project and replication analysis on time.

How well did you accomplish them?

Please let me know how well you feel you accomplished your tasks, in a general sense. What do you feel you did the best, and what did you do the least well? What was the hardest part for you? Did your work/understanding/ease improve over the course of the semester?

In a general sense, I believe that I completed all of the tasks assigned to me to the best of my ability. I have never taken a statistics class or a class involving R, so I believe I did an outstanding job considering those factors. I spent numerous hours on work for this class and countless nights staying up late trying to trouble-shoot issues I was having. When I had issues, I went to office hours when I had time as my schedule as a part-time graduate student and working part-time limits my availability. Google was also my best friend in this class! I also had some one on one time in class with you to help me with my statistical analysis as well, which really helped me. The assignment that I believe I did best on was the group vignette. I was responsible for the Anderson Darling Test and Final Challenge and feel as though I did a great job explaining each step of the ad.test() function within this assignment. This actually was commented on by a peer at the end of our presentation along with finding it helpful to include an example of a test that does not work well with a set of data, which was what I worked on as well. The most challenging part of the course I believe was homework assignment number 4. I had a hard time creating the function as I have little experience with R. After going to office hours, I felt more confident in what I was doing. Another challenging task was the replication assignment. I went to a few office hours, which helped me solve some issues I was having and feel as though I spent a lot of time on the assignment, which paid off in the end. As time went on, my effectiveness for using R increased, so I feel as though I was able to trouble-shoot/find solutions to the problems I was experiencing faster than at the start of the semester.

How has your understanding of and approach to statistics and project design changed since taking this course?

This may be in relation to previous knowledge, or in relation to future/planned work.

Since starting this course, statistics seemed incredibly overwhelming to me as well as project design. With the use of R, I think it helps take the load off quite a bit. I am excited to use it in future projects in my career as an ecologist. It will be a useful tool to analyze data and determine significance of results that I may produce in future work.

What did you learn from all this?

Please name at least three things you feel you learned in this course.

I learned …

What did your learn about teamwork in this course? How did the readings on teamwork foster this understanding? How did the teamwork experiences?

I learned a lot about teamwork within this course. The readings on teamwork helped to foster this understanding by providing a resource that I went to when I was struggling with certain aspects of teamwork, including how to give constructive criticism without sounding rude. I tend to come off in a way that is not how I intend to, so reading how to give constructive criticism properly helped me a lot. The teamwork experiences involved in peer-commentary aided in my ability to use collaboration and constructive criticism to better improve my work and to help others improve theirs. In working on the vignette assignment, I found that we had to coordinate meeting in person as well as on zoom, which was difficult at times, but much appreciated. I think my group partners and I worked extremely well together as well as those I did peer commentary with.



How did the Peer Commentary process and Group Project relate, if at all, to what you view as your successes or difficulties in this course?

I think that the peer commentary and group project related because once we each assigned ourselves part of the presentation, we would peer-review each others work and use constructive criticism to do so. We also practiced our presentation and gave constructive feedback on that as well which helped to better improve the presentation, overall. I think that overall this helped me troubleshoot and improve my assignments helping me be more successful in the course. Difficulties that arose were easier to manage when others described they were going through the same issue as well and how they went about trying to solve it.



What, if anything, of lasting value do you take away from this experience? If nothing, what would you do differently if you were to start over in this course?

I believe that this course has gave me the introduction to R that I needed to be able to succeed in the field of ecology as I wish to do so. I wanted to take this course because I know how important of a tool R is in the scientific community. This course also helped me learn more about constructive criticism, accepting it as well as giving it. Patience was learned as well as it took a long time to trouble-shoot for most, if not all, assignments I completed.



Taking this self-assessment into account (and with A being the highest), if you were the instructor, what grade would you give yourself given your evaluation of your own performance this semester? Please be honest.


[A]